Inbox / Charles Bermant
Spam education grows along with the problem

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If it's possible, spam is more intolerable now than this time last year. In recent weeks, we've seen countless news stories about the scourge, some generated by a report from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, which essentially said nothing new to anyone who has watched spam grow from an annoyance to a plague.

I received several messages from people who wanted to "comment" on the study, which reflected a desire to place their assertions alongside those from the study.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. This cycle, which may occur annually, does a lot to educate those who have not followed the matter closely.

As with many other technology trends through the years, the world is divided into two groups: those who know a lot about the issue and those who don't. Anything that decreases the size of the latter group is a good thing.

While the Pew study — at www.pewinternet.org/reports/toc.asp?Report=102 — does much to bring the public up to speed, you can get a more practical look at the spam problem from Spam Proof Your Email Address, a new e-book by Seattle author Brian Livingston ($9.95 at www.BriansBuzz.com/spamproof/).

Livingston, who says the spam process is "like making a series of collect phone calls," doesn't tell us how to turn back the clock and get off the current junk lists. Rather, he has a few "secrets" to keep the situation from getting worse.

This game could be dubbed "Beat the Harvester," how to fool the automated bots that crawl the Web in search of addresses to add to lists. Livingston's (obvious) advice is to keep your address off of any discussion group or Web page where it is vulnerable to this attack.

The continuing problem is that some people need to publish their address online to stay in business. Livingston's (less obvious) solution is to portray the address as an image file instead of a text string. The technology may exist for harvesters to read such images, but is hardly worth the trouble.

"Harvester programs are never going to take the time to wade through image files," Livingston said. "So this is a safe way to put your address online." Less safe, he said, is the tendency to spell out your address (example: cbermant at seattletimes dot com), a form that harvesters are already learning to gather.

Both Pew and Livingston report that "ignore and delete" is still the most popular way of dealing with spam. Eventually, this attitude of going out in the rain without an umbrella will be no longer practical as the situation reaches monsoon stage.

Livingston takes the time to debunk a common spam perception: that replying to spam's cease-and-desist link begets more spam. While there are some cases where the mailer will take you off the list, most such requests fall into a huge black hole. Livingston still suggests not responding to these links. His reasoning, however, is different — the action is useless, instead of dangerous.

Good to know. Pew, Livingston and other spam observers tell us that beating spam will be a gradual process with no quick fix. Their efforts advance education about the topic, which is an important first step.

Contact Charles Bermant by e-mail at cbermant@seattletimes.com. Type Inbox in the subject field. More columns at www.seattletimes.com/columnists.

Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company